Actually, I was thinking of the origin of the "ed", not the origin of the past tense per se. How can we speak about the origin of the past tense? That lies in our necessity to express events that may or may not have happened in a past time. How we mark this idea on words is what I was thinking of. 'ed' is the aorist past tense marker für schwache Verben in Englisch. Weiß du was?

Actually, I was thinking of the origin of the "ed", not the origin of the past tense per se. How can we speak about the origin of the past tense? That lies in our necessity to express events that may or may not have happened in a past time. How we mark this idea on words is what I was thinking of. 'ed' is the aorist past tense marker für schwache Verben in Englisch. Weiß du was?

'listened' is not just a past participle, but also Präteritum.

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You misunderstood. I didn't speak of the past tense and the past participle as such but of the respective endings -ed and -ed. These two endings are not the same thing and do not have the same origin. They just happen to be spelled alike.

- According to etymonline, the past participle marker is derived from a PIE suffix and is cognate with the Latin suffix -t-.

- The past tense marker of the Germanic weak verb is probably derived from an enclitic past tense verb ("did"). The assumption is that weak verbs were lacking a "proper" past tense in pre-Proto-Germanic and the past tense was constructed with an auxiliary verb, i.e. he loved her originally meant he love-did her. Compare the OE weak verb endings (example lufian = to love) and the corresponding past tense forms of don (=to do):
Indicative:ic lufode
þu lufodest
he lufode
we/ge/hie lufodon

Nachdem ich es mir überlege, ist was du sagst ist ziemlich unwahrscheinlich. If we work backwards, you suggestedic dyde
þu dydest
he dydewe/ge/hie dydon these are the past tense forms of don = "do" and this past tense is formed using the OE past tense form of "did", which you have written bold "de". Given the assumption, "de" is the past tense form of do, it is entirely unnecessary to write "dyde", when one could easily resort to "de". Therefore, whatever "de" is or was, it cannot have been the past tense of "don"

Wouldn't it seem more reasonable to assume, "de" or "t" or "ed" is just a particle added to indicate past tense, when there is no vowel change as in strong verbs?

...and this past tense is formed using the OE past tense form of "did", which you have written bold "de". Given the assumption, "de" is the past tense form of do...

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I didn't say anything like that. I said þu dydest (to pick one form, the 2nd singular, as an example) was the past tense of don. Don itself is a strong verb and not composed. The end part of this verb is found in the OE weak preterites. I used OE as an example, the actual development happened in pre Proto-Germanic where modern English thou lovedest was, according to the theory, was expressed as þu lubojanaN dedez (=thou live didst), i.e. the infinitive + the finite form of donaN. These expression now contracted: lubojanaN dedez > luboþez. which then developed in OE into þu lufodest.

This construction of new forms through contraction of enclitic auxiliaries has an important parallel in Romance: When the Latin future tense became extinct, a composite form with the auxiliary habere was used. Instead of tū amābis (thou wilt love) they said tū amāre habēs (literally: thou to love hast). Now, in Italian the 2nd singular habēs became hai and tu amare hai was contracted to yield the modern form tu amerai.

If you want to dive deeper into the etymology of the Germanic weak verb, you could start by reading this.

The participle prefix ge- expressed, or rather reenforced, the perfect aspect of the past participle. English lost it in Middle English (gedon > idone > done).

Do you have any source for this theory? I haven't found any. By contrast, the theory that the Romance future is derived from infinitive+present tense of habere and the conditional is derived from the infinitive+imperfect of habere (or, exceptionally, from infinitive+perfect tense of habere in modern Italian) can be found in every text book (example, example, example).

The almost (two exceptions in Italian: amare + abbiamo > ameremo & amare + ebbi > amerei) perfect alignment with the endings of the respective versions of habere suggests that periphrastic nature of the forms must have remained transparent relatively long.

Also the unusual stress patterns in Spanish and Italian (amaré, not amare; amerò, not amero) make a direct derivation from Latin amāverō practically impossible.

From a certain point of view, this is even more interesting for me. Tell me if my conclusion seems correct please: A long time ago, weak verbs had no paradigm. They acquired a paradigm by merging the verb stem with something like the paradigm of "do" or "have", then losing bits.

How and why strong verbs acquired a paradigm is then another question. You know that Chinese has no kind of paradigm whatsoever?
Thanks for the link, very interesting pdf!

And one last well meant, if somewhat flippant remark, (nicht böse werden): Is it correct to speak of "pre Proto"?

And one last well meant, if somewhat flippant remark, (nicht böse werden): Is it correct to speak of "pre Proto"?

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Proto-Germanic is by definition of the term the youngest common ancestor of all Germanic languages. Because the weak verb paradigm exists in all Germanic languages, its development must already have been completed in Proto-Germanic and must, hence, have occurred before ("pre") Proto-Germanic.

One last question for now if you don't mind: if one assumes the past tense was formed by saying "love did" , it seems to me logical to assume the present would be formed “love do". Do people assume thus?

These two "exceptions" can be solved using the... Romanesco (Rome dialect).amare + avemo > ameremo
amare + ebbi > amerebbi
And berndf, I needn't tell you that the first isn't really an exception: abbiamo < habemus.
It's rather the present tense abbiamo that changed more, while the desinence of the future tense remained more similar to the Latin.
In Romanesco verb conjugations are usually more conservative than Italian.

I think the best example is Portuguese, which it is even more straightforward.

I didn't notice that the future and the conditional of Romance languages were formed in this way, until I learnt Portuguese.
Knowing the etymology of the future tense and the conditional helped me a lot in understanding the mesóclise in Portuguese:amar + te + hei > amar-te-ei
amar + te + habia > amar-te-ia

One last question for now if you don't mind: if one assumes the past tense was formed by saying "love did" , it seems to me logical to assume the present would be formed “love do". Do people assume thus?

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Isn't present tense just the base form plus person/number endings derived from PIE?

Not only in Romanesco, but e.g. in Ligurian it's ému in Sardinian amus etc. On the other hand, in Spanish, besides hemos there exists also the form habemos. I can imagine that various forms could coexist in the past even in the same linguistical territory, at least until a certain degree. For example "longer" and "shorter" variants and perhaps also an "oscillation" between "v" and "bb" in the Italoromance vernaculars. Otherwise it would be difficult to explain the modern Italian (or Tuscan) forms like ameremo.

amar + te + hei > amar-te-ei
amar + te + habia > amar-te-ia

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It's a perfect example for the demonstration of the oginin of the Romance future.

@JE: One would think so. So do etymologists assume PIE had no past tense for (weak) verbs? Then along came the Germans and inserted a 'did' on the end to indicate that something was over. And a 'have' afterwards to show it hadn't happened yet? I suppose no one really knows.

What I would really like to know is: when was the first verb paradigm invented, and why?

Does it occur to you, that, given someone, long ago, must have invented verb paradigms, they simply used a regular pattern of declensions? That is to say: are you sure "amar + te + hei > amar-te-ei" was so formed? Why do you not assume, whoever wrote the paradigms just used a simple logic. It would be more difficult to think of different endings for all the various parts! The full paradigm of an Old Greek verb is something like 181 words. One would rapidly run out of suitable endings, if one tried to find radically different endings for each part, not to mention the learning of such an animal!

... Then along came the Germans and inserted ... a 'have' afterwards to show it hadn't happened yet?

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Exactly. Not only the Germans, of course ... The future tense is good example, because it's really not too difficult to understand. How do you say in you mother tongue when something hadn't happened yet?

I suppose in English you say e.g. "he will go". Doesnt't "will" originally mean "to want" in English ? ... Doesn't "he will (=wants to) go" but also "I shall (=must, have to) go" and "he has (in case of Romance languages) to go" show actions that hadn't happened yet? ... These are good examples to show how various "constructions" lead to the "birth" of various grammatical categories, in our case to the "birth" of the so called future tense.

@JE: One would think so. So do etymologists assume PIE had no past tense for (weak) verbs? Then along came the Germans and inserted a 'did' on the end to indicate that something was over. And a 'have' afterwards to show it hadn't happened yet? I suppose no one really knows.

What I would really like to know is: when was the first verb paradigm invented, and why?

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Weak verbs were Pre-Proto-Germanic innovations, i.e. verbs "invented" during this period. Many of these verbs were Germanic causatives, like to love (to cause love) of fell (to cause to fall). Causative verbs were characterized by by the suffix -jan- and were therefore multi-syllabic and the strong preterite patterns inherited from PIE only worked for single-syllable stems. This is one of the reasons suggested in the literature why the existing ablaut-patterns weren't extended to these new verbs to form the preterite but a periphrastic form was invented instead.

What I would really like to know is: when was the first verb paradigm invented, and why?

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That is a pretty silly question, no offense.

Does it occur to you, that, given someone, long ago, must have invented verb paradigms, they simply used a regular pattern of declensions?

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It does not occur to me that someone ever 'invented' a verb paradigm. Patterns are a natural feature of languages, and that is all a verb paradigm is.

Why do you not assume, whoever wrote the paradigms just used a simple logic.

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Verb paradigms existed long before there was any writing.

It would be more difficult to think of different endings for all the various parts!

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I suppose these just come from somewhere. I doubt anyone sits down and invents them; that would be absurd.

The full paradigm of an Old Greek verb is something like 181 words. One would rapidly run out of suitable endings, if one tried to find radically different endings for each part, not to mention the learning of such an animal!

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I don't know anything about Greek; I do know that there is no natural language too difficult for a normally-developing human brain to learn in infancy—making something even as complex as you've described linguistic child's play, pun intended.

I don't quite follow berndf: for 'Pre-Proto-Germanic' I will read 'some other language' Do you mean, 'love' in 'some other language' was a causative verb? Or in Proto-Germanic it was/became a causative verb and was given the ending -jan??

Chinese has no verb paradigm. It is the oldest extant language. All other old languages with rich verb paradigms are dead. English and Swedish have almost rid themselves of verb paradigms. English is very successful at the moment. Do you see a trend here?

I don't quite follow berndf: for 'Pre-Proto-Germanic' I will read 'some other language' Do you mean, 'love' in 'some other language' was a causative verb? Or in Proto-Germanic it was/became a causative verb and was given the ending -jan??

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The verb to love is an invention in Proto-Germanic or one of its predecessor languages (pre-Proto-Germanic). The verb didn't exist in PIE. Or, to take an easier example: to fell. It is a causative derivation of to fall. I.e. to was produced by the suffix -jan rather than -an-, or just -j- in finite forms. So, in proto-Germanic you had the base verb *fallanaN conjugated by patterns inherited from PIE:
Present: I fall = *fallijō
Preterite: I fell = *fefall (reduplicating pattern; no 1st person ending -ō in preterite)

Now, as an innovation we have the causative derivation *fallijanaN (= to call to fall = to fall). The present tense stem for this new verb was *fallij-, a two syllable stem to which the "old" patterns weren't applicable. It therefore received the preterite suffix derived from *don:
Present: I fell = *ik fallijōPreterite: I felled = *ik fallidoN

In Old English, *ik fallijō underwent two changes: 1) the ending -ō became -e and 2) the pattern CaCi underwent i-mutation and became CeC. Hence: ik fallijō became ic felle. The preterite ending, as explained above, changed to -ede in the 1st person singular and *ik fallidoN became ic fellede. Dropping the ending -e we obtain the modern forms: I fell - I felled.

Chinese has no verb paradigm. It is the oldest extant language. All other old languages with rich verb paradigms are dead.

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The oldest Greek (Mycenaean) texts are considerably older (ca. 1600 BC) than the oldest texts in Chinese. So Greek has a recorded history of about 3600 years and is still going strong. And it still has quite a vigorous system of verbal inflection.

@PedroGrazalema: Please, try to take in consideration what we are trying to tell you (including my post #19 ):

Every language changes continouosely. For example, various vebal endings ("paradigms" in you terminology) appear and change and disappear during the centuries or millenia, eventually totally new endings take place. Nobody invents paradigms and nobody abolish them consciousely, this is a continuous process. Absolutely not "illogical" but complicated ... (to say so).

The Romance furure is a perfect example. One might think that somebody invented some kind of "paradigms" (better: verbal endings or conjugation) to express the future tense, as follows (in Spanish):
1.pers.sg. -ré
2.pers.sg.-rás
3.pers.sg.-rá

1.pers.pl.-remos
2.pers.pl.-réis
3.pers.pl.-rán

Instead, this verbal endings are not invented nor created but they are result of a longer process: the infitive of various verbs plus the conjugated form of "habere" were used together "so often", that the contracted forms of "habere" really became part of those verbs and thus they became "true" verbal endigns (quasi "paradigms") from the today's point of view. We are able to understand this process because we can compare many Romance languages and the Latin (practically a pre-Proto-Romance) is well documented.

In other cases, as for example in case of the Germanic preterite, it is not so "obvious" or clear at the "first glance", because we do not have written documents about the pre-Proto-Germanic. But it doesn't mean that we cannot analyze or understand or even reconstruct them (to a certain degree, of course).

Then can we say that irregular verbs in English come directly from Proto Germanic/Old English; while regular verbs are later "inventions" or coming from other languages?
Usually it's said that all the verbs for common every day use are irregular.

I believe, if you want to find the origin of '-ed', as I do, you will need to look for a similar particle. PIE *do- 'to, toward, upward' for example. Although the origin of English 'do' may lie in the PIE 'to' I still find the assumption we 'love did' when we don't 'love do' to be just that: an unsubstantiated assumption.

I believe, if you want to find the origin of '-ed', as I do, you will need to look for a similar particle. PIE *do- 'to, toward, upward' for example. Although the origin of English 'do' may lie in the PIE 'to' I still find the assumption we 'love did' when we don't 'love do' to be just that: an unsubstantiated assumption.

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Periphrastic verb forms are commonly used in languages to fill "holes". But this doesn't mean they have to change other verb forms. E.g. Modern English uses periphrastic verb forms for future, present and past perfect tenses but still retain the simple present and simple past.

In Old English, *ik fallijō underwent two changes: 1) the ending -ō became -e and 2) the pattern CaCi underwent i-mutation and became CeC. Hence: ik fallijō became ic felle. The preterite ending, as explained above, changed to -ede in the 1st person singular and *ik fallidoN became ic fellede. Dropping the ending -e we obtain the modern forms: I fell - I felled.

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Didn't happen earlier than Old English? It's the same in Old Norse you see with the causative -ja augment so I presumed it was a common feature to West-North Germanic. Then again, I suppose if you give the languages all the tools they need to make a pretty bog-standard phonological shift (root 'a' vowel and a i/j suffix added to it) then eventually they'll all do the same thing but at slightly different times (and more importantly - independently). I hadn't thought about that before.

@Juan: You don't have to be so scathing to others to successfully put your disagreement across. I agree with your points but this thread definitely feels academically devalued by the tone that has been devolved to.

Yes, you are right, of course. It must have happened before West- and North-Germanic languages split but after East-Germanic separated from Common Germanic because Gothic doesn't show this feature. For the purpose of this thread it seemed an unnecessary complication to me.

Yes, you are right, of course. It must have happened before West- and North-Germanic languages split but after East-Germanic separated from Common Germanic because Gothic doesn't show this feature. For the purpose of this thread it seemed an unnecessary complication to me.

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Ops I missed an "it" out of my post. Anyway, thanks for confirming. I didn't mean to go off track, just wanted to make sure I'd understood the 'ordering of events' so-to-speak!

...the Romance legacy languages tend to derive their conjugated future stems from the Latin Future Perfect, amerai > amaveris, &c.
Do you have any source for this theory? I haven't found any. By contrast, the theory that the Romance future is derived from infinitive+present tense of habere and the conditional is derived from the infinitive+imperfect of habere (or, exceptionally, from infinitive+perfect tense of habere in modern Italian) can be found in every text book (example, example, example).

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Sorry berndf, I think this was D-I-Y philology on my part from years ago, based on the fact that both French and Italian conjugated futures tend to form themselves from stem+r+personal ending, irrespective of the conjugational system of the original Latin verb (fecero, vincero &c., as well as Fr. je dormirai, j'écouterai, where I detect no sign of the habere root. Indeed, I have seen or read somewhere, sorry for no immediate reference, a theory that ama-bo > ama + [ha]be-re).

What info do you have on the past tense marker '-ed' ? English sometimes uses -t. Chinese uses 了 le and 过 guo

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Chinese has no tenses. It has aspect markers, like 了 to indicate for example a completed action, or a change in circumstances, like an action that is about to happen. 过 marks an action that has occurred once (Xguo = Did you ever X), and there are more, like 着 zhe for an ongoing action, which may have happened or is happening or will happen.

It's true that Chinese verbs aren't conjugated for number and person. But a stretched definition of "paradigm" might perhaps allow a list of aspect particles like those mentioned above to be regarded as a paradigm.

It's true that Chinese verbs aren't conjugated for number and person. But a stretched definition of "paradigm" might perhaps allow a list of aspect particles like those mentioned above to be regarded as a paradigm.

sing-sang-sung :
What happens is the tongue moves down. Instead of particles, tone is used to try to indicate time.

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a) Different vowels do indeed have different tongue positions, but there is no general lowering trend in going from "sing" to "sang" to "sung".
b) The vowel-related change in tongue position has nothing to do with "tone". Any of the three vowels can be said with any tone.